Rescue (By Eyes Unseen Book One)

by F. E. Greene

  Broad as a mountain, Mis Ruel consumed whatever room she entered and measured others by their own expanse. Intellect didn’t matter. Neither did talent. Mis Ruel doted only on the wealthiest children, fussing over their fancy sashes and praising their efforts even when they failed.

  So Pearl worked hard to notice the rest. She listened to each question and helped whoever asked. She hugged any child who cried, no matter how grimy the tear-stained face, and she brewed the best tea on all birthdays.

  Mis Ruel noticed, too. Silently, at first, she disapproved of Pearl’s efforts. The intent of each woman became a crusade. Then, inevitably, a war.

  For Pearl, her best weapons were stories. Every morning at 11 bells, Mis Ruel retired for an early lunch, and the bellspan that followed was Pearl’s to fill. Whenever she reached for the low stool coated with glittery paint, flecks of which always clung to her dress, the children scuttled to a colorful corner, one embellished with their drawings and a fluffy rug borrowed from Hollycopse. Sprawled like caterpillars atop soft pillows, they propped chins into palms and waited.

  On this particular day, the last of the summering season, Pearl told her favorite story with fresh enthusiasm while the children listened as if they’d never heard it before. Predictably they gawped and gasped. They wriggled where they sat and fiddled with their sashes. They asked questions, knowing the answers.

  “And so the king returned to his castle with a hundred new subjects – all good and polite, all respectful and kind,” Pearl recited. “Along the way they tended the sick, fed the hungry, and gave merits to anyone who needed them.”

  “Where did they find so much money?”

  “The king owns a boundless treasury,” Pearl said. “The more he shares, the more he has.”

  “What happened when they reached the castle?”

  “The king arranged a marvelous banquet. Every guest was given beautiful clothes, comfortable shoes, and rare jewels to wear. With three rings of a bell, the king summoned them to a magnificent hall. They stepped through a pair of polished doors to see platinum candeliers, with real flames burning, above a marble floor. Each table is carved from the single trunk of a widewood tree, and everyone sits on chairs with velvet cushions.”

  “And the food?”

  “Any dish you can imagine and countless more you can’t. You’re allowed to eat much as you wish, and for dessert the king serves a special cake which tastes like each person’s favorite, no matter what that might be.”

  Pearl paused to let the children imagine it. Those who’d never eaten cake struggled while others called out how theirs would taste. Watching their faces, Pearl remembered again why she loved children. They were willing to believe the impossible.

  “That sounds like magic,” a girl whispered.

  “Not magic,” Pearl said. “Something better.”

  “Are there servants?”

  “Of a sort,” she answered. “Everyone in the castle serves the king.”

  “What does the castle look like?”

  “To enter, you step through a silver gate with a threadgold crest at its center. A carriageway takes you past a labyrinth of gardens to the steps of an enormous square keep. The keep has so many rooms, you can’t visit them all in one day. It contains more staircases than the lord governor’s mansion, and it has more floors than you can find.”

  “Are there stables?”

  “With many fine horses.

  “Is there a courtyard?”

  “Of course. And its grass never turns brown, even in winter.”

  “That sounds lovely,” another girl sighed. “How do you know so much about it?”

  Absorbed by her own story, Pearl leaned forward. The children, as always, tilted toward her in response. They knew whatever she said next was very important.

  Before this particular day, Pearl would have given her typical answer. She’d read plenty about the castle. Its rumored existence fascinated her father, and he shared much of his research with Pearl. Mythory, he called it – unverified history that wasn’t entirely false.

  For Pearl those accounts and descriptions – especially when her father read them aloud – tempted her to believe they were true. They conjured within her a wild desire, like eddies swirling beneath a river’s surface. Their currents tugged at her common sense. They would persist until she surrendered.

  Finally, that morning, she did. Everything changed. Therefore so did her answer.

  “Because I’ve seen it,” she told the children. “I’ve seen the castle.”

  “Pearl Sterling!”

  When the sound of her name cracked like a whip, everyone jumped. In the schoolhouse doorway loomed Mis Ruel. She’d forgotten one of her lunch buckets. She demanded Pearl join her on the porch.

  Rising from her seat, Pearl endured the ritual. Timorous gazes stayed with her as she slipped through the maze of desks. When she followed Mis Ruel outside, Pearl left the door standing open. Like the children, she knew how to act when reprimanded, and public humiliation in Castlevale was worse than any thrashing.

  “Pearl Sterling!” Mis Ruel said her name again, loudly, to draw attention. The tactic worked as passers-by slowed to overhear. “Exactly what game were you playing in there?”

  The question wasn’t meant to be answered, and Pearl knew it. “We weren’t playing games. It was storytime, so I thought I might –”

  “You thought telling tales about kings is a wise thing to do?”

  “If they’re only tales, then there’s no harm in telling –”

  “If they’re only tales, then we shouldn’t tell them at all. School is for practical lessons, not frivolous myths. Those stories of yours won’t put food on a table.”

  Usually Pearl would try to look chastened. The schooler’s blustery voice and glacial shape intimidated more than just children, and like a runaway boulder Mis Ruel bore down on others until they lay crushed in her wake. The wisest way to avoid being flattened was to deftly step aside.

  For once, however, Pearl stood her ground. “We tell lots of stories about monsters,” she said. “And ghosts. And horrible villains who destroy whole lands. Why should stories about kings be different? At least they’re not scary.”

  “But we don’t say the monsters are real! If people start to believe a king exists, they’ll begin to think that he should. Imagine what would happen if rumors flew that Castlevale had an actual castle, with a real king who gives merits to scraplings. We’d be overrun with scavers before the autumn was done!”

  As she endured the scolding, Pearl pressed herself against the porch wall. With Mis Ruel, indignation was commonplace. Uncontrolled fury was not. While the schooler’s rebuke contained a new sort of rage, Pearl could not bring herself to apologize.

  “My parents told me those stories, and they’ve done me no harm.”

  “Your parents?” Mis Ruel spat the words like they stung her lips. “Nothing about those two could be trusted. They abandoned you, and you still make excuses for them. Tell me, have their stories come true? Has a king shown up to save you?”

  Grudgingly Pearl admitted one hadn’t.

  “Does a king pay your wages? Buy your clothes? Settle your debts?”

  “That’s not the point of the story.”

  “Quiet!” Mis Ruel waved a meaty arm. “It’s the same nonsense your parents used to spout, and look what it earned them. They’re dead, and you’re left to bear their shame.”

  Used to hearing such things, Pearl didn’t cry as she once might have. “My parents are not dead, and I am not ashamed of them. Besides, there is a king. I know it.”

  “And how do you know so much?”

  “Because I’ve seen the castle.” Pearl knew she sounded ridiculous, even insane, but conviction had gripped her, and she would not relent. “I saw it this morning on the great hill south of town.”

  Mis Ruel closed the gap between them. “And did you see a king?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Pearl confessed. “But a castle was there. So the stor
ies must be true.”

  The schooler trembled as she towered over Pearl. “That’s it! I’m done! This is all I can suffer! Hand over your sash and go home, or I’ll call the instables to haul you away.”

  Incensed by the threat, Pearl forgot to act penitent. “You can’t reduce me! The town council appoints this job.”

  “Which is why you’ll resign immediately. Make up some reason that isn’t nonsense, or I’ll make one up for you.” Mis Ruel extended a quivering hand. “And give me your sash.”

  With unusual courage Pearl refused.

  Mis Ruel grabbed the sash, yanking it away, and Pearl yelped when the seams tore. While she wasn’t hurt, that hardly mattered. No one took another’s sash without permission. If her sash had belonged to anyone else, the instables would issue a reprimand, and Mis Ruel would pay a fine.

  But it was Pearl’s sash that hung limp from the schooler’s thick fist. Both women knew nothing would come of it.

  Stepping back, Mis Ruel pointed at the open door. “Get your things and leave.”

  Pearl could do nothing but comply. Because her job had no title, she had no right to stay. In Castlevale people fought over titles like brats grasping for the last honeycomb. But after four years of employment, the town council had yet to assign a title to Pearl.

  Their oversight was intentional. Pearl had no friends, no influence, and no spare merits to purchase either. No one would let her forget it.

  Grabbing her lunch bucket, Pearl avoided the children’s bleak stares. If she looked at them, she would cry – not from shame but regret. In trying to score a point for herself, she’d lost more than her job in the schoolhouse. Now there would be no more stories.

  Pearl kept her eyes down while she rushed back outside. She would retreat to her farm and think of what to do next. Hollycopse was the only refuge she knew.

  Chapter Three

  Some people believe names don’t matter. A girl named Prudence might not be prim and gentle. A boy named Plato needn’t hide in the library. Butch could have more brains than brawn, and Honey may act less than sweet.

  Other parents go to uncharted lengths to give a child the perfect name. They research meanings and pedigree. They wait for personalities to emerge. On many occasions they succeed.

  In the case of Hieronymus Stentorian, they did not.

  Never was a son more horribly named for well-intended reasons. His first name came from a double-great uncle, twice removed, who broke ground on the Stentorian lumber mill. The last was from his mother’s side since wealth, not gender, determined sirenames in Rosper.

  His middle name brought no relief either. Bragador, a paternal heirloom, proved a bit too fitting for a child raised to see himself, and his family, as supreme.

  Because his mother disliked nicknames, Hieronymus scorned them as well. Envy flared in his chest, however, when he heard other lads use them during impromptu games which he watched silently from cloistered places to avoid not being chosen for a side.

  Rosperian protocol didn’t help. His official title – the Most Honorable Lord Governor’s Inheritor – made addressing Hieronymus in a formal setting more difficult than talking with a mouthful of marbles.

  So it was up to Hieronymus to enlist his own friends. During childhood he learned to manipulate, even blackmail or bribe, when no better options were left. With observation and thought, he could decipher anyone’s weakness, then conjure a means to exploit it. In that way Hieronymus was a true son of Rosper.

  And throughout his perpetual hunt for companions, his favorite quarry was Pearl Sterling.

  He hounded Pearl mostly because she never gave in. He loved her, too – or so he believed. When Pearl’s dark eyes watched him with graceful disinterest, Hieronymus sometimes forgot to breathe.

  Admittedly she was a terrible match for the Most Honorable Lord Governor’s Inheritor. Scandal tainted her social standing, and if the names of all Castleveilians were carved upon a ladder, Pearl’s would rest on the bottom rung. Only scraplings and ragbaggers ranked lower.

  But Hieronymus knew the power of a name. When Pearl married him, everyone would forget her unfortunate history, and he would become her generous benefactor, a trait that might finally set him apart from his father.

  If charity began at home, then Hieronymus would be the first Stentorian to show it – by marrying the girl worth nothing.

  With his own education finished, Hieronymus did little more than he had to. Mostly that included trailing Pearl to and from the schoolhouse. He often found a reason to pass by at lunchtime in case she decided to picnic beneath her favorite shade tree. Some days Hieronymus invited himself to join her. Some days he only watched her eat.

  So when Pearl left the schoolhouse, having lost her sash and her job, she made a point to ignore the Most Honorable Lord Governor’s Inheritor. He hovered on the porch of a nearby store where he pretended to chat with influential men who were friends of his father, or what passed for friends. No doubt he overheard Pearl’s exchange with Mis Ruel. Everyone within earshot did. The schooler made sure of it.

  Years of being pursued had taught Pearl one useful thing – how to escape. As Hieronymus waffled on the porch, now trapped in his sham conversation, Pearl bolted down the road, skirt clasped in her free hand to avoid tripping over its hem. With luck she would reach the market square before Hieronymus set one shoe to the dirt.

  Castlevale’s main road – the Bullevard – ran as straight as a spine from the town’s northern edge to the base of a massive hill. Buildings crowded its borders. Bright flowers filled the gaps. The upper floors of some shops were connected by walkways, and everything was made of wood.

  As Pearl wove through the bustle of foot traffic, townsfolk scowled when her lunch bucket bumped their parcels. Some demanded an apology. Pearl didn’t respond. She was in a race to get home, and so far she was winning.

  When she reached the Bullevard Market, Pearl cut through its middle. Storefronts lined the market’s perimeter. In its open square, wheeled kiosks formed orderly rows. Patrons clustered beneath cheery awnings to sample foods and rummage through the bargain carts while vendors described their merchandise with sing-song appeals. Dishes from Illial. Helstones from Orld. Conch shells combed on the southwest coast, and threadgold mined inside the Great Rift.

  Nimbly Pearl avoided the pockets of chaos until, over a squall of voices, she heard someone call her name. It wasn’t Hieronymus or anyone familiar. Curious, she paused at the market’s heart and climbed onto a bench that encircled the town’s bell tower.

  To her relief, Hieronymus didn’t emerge from the jumble of bodies. He couldn’t have slipped past her. At his swiftest he ran like a hamstrung cow.

  Beside Pearl the campanile soared. It was Castlevale’s crowning glory, carved from the trunk of a single tree, and it eclipsed adjacent rooftops by twice their height. Elaborate sculpting adorned its sides. Day and night its bronze bell rang faithfully.

  Now the campanile’s shadow was a sliver beneath the midday sun. Hopping down, Pearl abandoned the mystery to resume her escape. She aimed for a substantial arch, also carved from wood, at the market’s southern end. There, the Bullevard splintered into three distinct paths.

  Ordinarily Pearl turned right onto Lake Trail Lane. Heading west, it was the road to Hollycopse. The one-wagon lane wound its way past farms and villages until it merged with a major carriageway. Just once Pearl had traveled that carriageway on a rare trip to the nearest library. While she cherished the time with her father, she disliked being so far from home.

  Pearl rarely went left. The eastern road led to Barrowfield, a lesser town that made its merits by seeding culled forests. Its market was small, its merchants disreputable, and Castleveilians interpreted any visit to Barrowfield as a barefaced betrayal. Pearl’s mother, who couldn’t care less, had walked there often to buy seeds for the garden and field. Seldom did Pearl join her.

  No one took the road going south. Overgrown and neglected, it was barely a trail that ended at a dil
apidated bridge. Crossing the bridge seemed unsafe, so no one did.

  That bridge led to a hill no one climbed. The mump, as most Castleveilians called it, tarnished their otherwise idyllic town, disrupting the vale’s placid sweep.

  From the mump’s western side bulged a lake that became a source of frightening stories meant to keep children from its shores. If the mump was an eyesore, then the lake was a blight. Unkempt thickets fenced its banks, and deep waters obscured its bottom. No one could be bothered to name it.

  Only Pearl’s parents were unoffended by the mump and unafraid of the lake. Before he vanished, Alyn Sterling often crossed the fallen bridge to study what remained of a staunch outer wall that surrounded the great hill like a crown. Then he strolled, unconcerned, along the lakeshore.

  At first Pearl worried her father would succumb to the mump’s promised horrors – phantoms, plagues, a lifetime of bad luck. When he didn’t, she began to question what she learned in the town schoolhouse.

  Beneath the market archway Pearl wavered. Always she went right without thinking. But that morning she’d seen, or believed she had seen, a castle atop the great hill. The hill was a refuge Pearl never considered. If she climbed the mump, not even Hieronymus would follow.

  Tempted, she stared at the bridge.

  In response it turned solid. Pillars lifted, and mortar re-formed. Its planks snapped crisply into place. As the sturdy slats beckoned at Pearl, a bell – very near and almost familiar – rang once.

  Mouth agape, Pearl waited for the castle to reappear. This time, however, the mump stayed empty, and a warm, dusty wind swept down from its crest, forcing Pearl to shut her eyes.

  When the wind died, she looked again at the fallen bridge. Its transformation hadn’t lasted.